


Germany

by sheafrotherdon



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Caretaking, Grief/Mourning, Happy, M/M, Team as Family, Thanksgiving
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-26
Updated: 2020-11-26
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:53:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27727735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sheafrotherdon/pseuds/sheafrotherdon
Summary: Nicky doesn't tell Joe his plans until mid-October.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 43
Kudos: 280





	Germany

Nicky doesn’t tell Joe his plans until mid-October. By that point he’s made a color-coded spreadsheet with hyperlinks to recipes, and lists of the places from which he can order the harder-to-find items. He’s asked Copley if it’s possible he could engineer some time for them all in the German safe house in November, and done it so skillfully that Joe is sure Copley has no idea what’s going on. 

Nicky stands a few feet away while Joe reads through every file, arms crossed, worrying his bottom lip with his teeth. When Joe looks up, Nicky raises his eyebrows slightly, looking unsure. Joe’s heart squeezes, and he sets the laptop on the bed and crosses over to Nicky, takes his face between his hands and kisses him softly. 

“Is it okay?” Nicky asks when they part.

Joe shakes his head, smiling. “You needle me when I call you kind, and then you do something like this.”

Nicky looks down and away, but squares his shoulders. “It will be hard for her.”

“You’re right. But you’re the only one of us who thought that through,” Joe says, taking one of Nicky’s hands in his and kissing his palm. “When I think I can’t love you more . . .”

Nicky huffs but he’s smiling. “It’s nothing.”

“It’s _spreadsheets_.”

Nicky meets his gaze. “You think she’ll like it?”

Joe nods. “What can I do to help?”

******

They meet for a job in mid-November, a quick in-and-out at a data management company that holds way too much information about the movements of protest organizers on no less than three continents. It takes a couple of days to prep, less than an evening to execute, and then they make their way to Germany in two different groups, reuniting on a cold Sunday evening that promises snow. Thanks to Copley, the safe house is warm already, clean and inviting, and while the others settle in, Joe pulls together a tagine that slowly scents the house with the fragrance of preserved lemons and lamb. One by one, Nicky, then Andy, then Nile drift to the kitchen to ask how long until dinner, and Joe hands them a glass of wine and diverts the conversation until everyone’s loose-limbed and smiling. 

Nile seems happy over dinner, making the kind of appreciative noises over the food that make Joe beam, offering her own stories to weave in and out of the ones they tell her. But as the evening winds down she gets quieter, and Nicky, Andy, and Joe exchange knowing looks when she excuses herself to head to bed. 

“She’ll be okay,” says Andy.

“She will,” Joe agrees, squeezing Nicky’s knee under the table, and meeting his glance with a smile.

They’ve agreed to stay put for a week, to debrief the jobs they’ve done together and separately, to figure out if having Copley as an associate is working the way they’d hoped. But there’s an unspoken understanding that they’re in place to wind down, too, that even Andy is eager to stop moving for a few days. They all sleep longer than they have in some time, Nile most of all, and Joe suspects that as good as it feels she’s glad for the long hours where she’s not thinking. It’s written all over her face.

Joe takes her running, up into the hills beyond the house, stoking Nile’s competitiveness and accepting that she beats him in almost every race he proposes. Out here, despite the cold, she seems lighter. Perhaps it’s the landscape, the sere beauty of November with the mountains at their back; perhaps it’s the company and the fact that Joe will do most anything to have her laugh. Perhaps it’s the clean, hot burn of muscle and breath, the climb before them, their descent on weak legs, arms wrapped around one another as they wobble a path back to the house. Perhaps it’s that they’re in a place big enough to absorb her grief. Whatever the cause, Joe’s glad of it, hustles her out of the house each morning so that by Thursday it’s routine, and she misses Nicky’s restlessness and Andy’s small smile.

They’re home by noon to find the kitchen in the kind of disarray that promises a spectacular meal. The air is sharp with the scent of freshly-diced herbs, rich with the smell of melted butter.

“Is that . . .” Nile frowns. “Do I smell _turkey_?”

Nicky turns around from the kitchen counter, wiping his hands on a towel. “You do.”

Nile blinks, looking around the room. There are greens soaking in the sink, potatoes waiting to be peeled, a pie cooling by the window that’s open just a crack. “Are you . . .”

Nicky raises an eyebrow.

“Is this Thanksgiving?” she asks.

Nicky smiles just a little and nods. “Your traditions are ours now.”

Joe watches as Nile clenches her jaw and swallows, as her breathing stutters before it smooths again. “I didn’t think . . .”

“It is not your family’s table, I know,” Nicky says, setting the towel on the counter. “But I hope it might take some of the sting from today.”

Nile pulls in a long breath, then walks briskly over to where Nicky’s standing, wraps her arms around him and says something into his neck. Nicky smiles and hugs her back, saying something soft in return, and Joe feels his whole chest fill with love and affection for them both.

Nile steps back and nods briskly. “What can I do to help.”

“Shower,” says Joe. “You stink.”

She flips him off. 

“There are many things I could use your advice on,” Nicky tells her. “And they’ll all be here once you’ve changed.”

“So you’re saying I stink too?”

Nicky hitches a shoulder. “I’ve smelled worse,” he says, gesturing with his chin in Joe’s direction.

“Hey!” Joe laughs.

Andy wanders in, a book open in her hand, thumb tucked between the pages. “Can a woman not have some peace and quiet?” she asks, but she’s grinning, and Nile grins back at her. 

Nicky looks across the room at Joe, smiling. Joe offers him a wink.

******

Nicky is true to his word – while he’s cooked almost all of the dinner ingredients in some shape or form in his life, the particular way Nile wants things seasoned, the combination of flavors in the greens pot, the question of how much macaroni and cheese they should make—he defers to her and cheerfully follows her directions. Joe showers himself, then settles at the kitchen table beside Andy to listen to everyone talk, to soak up the stories Nile tells haltingly at first, and then with greater ease. There are hard stories—the Thanksgiving after her father died—but warm memories, too, and Joe fetches a notebook, sketches out the back of Nile and Nicky as they stand hip to hip, chopping vegetables. Andy tells them a handful of stories about the festivals of thanks she’s seen across her lifetime, one of which involved a series of sexual exploits even Joe finds truly stunning. Joe offers a story or two when asked, but he’s content to listen, to soak up the affection in the room, the alchemy of kindness and food and good company. Besides, almost all of his gratitudes are tied up with the man standing across the kitchen and Joe’s long years of loving him. He’d rather save those words for when they’re alone, curled around one another, drowsy with contentment in bed. It’s a small thing, but he never grows tired of the way Nicky smiles to hear Joe retell a story he was present for in the first place, or the way Nicky gently insists he’s remembering it wrong between fond, sweet kisses.

*****

Joe volunteers to wash the dishes and kicks Andy under the table until she volunteers too.

“That’s my job,” Nile says, shaking her head.

“You cooked this,” Joe says, gesturing at the plates strewn across the table. “You and Nicky get a pass.”

“But that’s my job,” Nile says again, and Joe tilts his head, hearing something tight in her tone of voice. He glances at Nicky, but Andy’s already leaning forward, setting her hand over Nile’s.

“New tradition,” she says softly, and that, out of everything, is when Nile almost crumples, her face doing something complicated before she presses her lips together, eyes bright, and nods. “Okay.” She swallows hard and sets her shoulders.

“There’s still a bottle of white wine outside,” Nicky offers lightly. “Perhaps we should bring it in before the freeze.”

Nile nods again and stands up quickly, mumbles something and grabs her jacket from the coat hooks by the kitchen door as she goes.

Joe sighs as the door closes. “Should I . . .”

“Give her space,” says Andy, shaking her head.

Nicky pours himself more wine and leans back in his chair. “Besides, you have work to do.”

Joe rolls his eyes extravagantly, but pushes back and begins to gather the plates. “Me n’atu sole,” he begins singing, and Nicky groans from what seems like the depths of his soul. “Cchiu' bello, oi ne', 'o sole mio, sta 'nfronte a te . . .”

Andy cackles delightedly, and Nicky pulls deeply from his glass.

In the end it’s Andy who goes outside to see how Nile’s doing, and who stays out there long past the point of the dishes being put away and order restored. Joe wipes his hands on the damp towel he’s been using, then meanders to the living room where Nicky’s built a fire. He’s lying on the sofa when Joe finds him, and Joe can’t help but crawl up and over him, licking into his mouth and sighing happily when Nicky returns the favor. “You did good,” he murmurs when the kiss breaks, but Nicky’s frowning and twisting under him, and absolutely not in the moment.

“Move left,” Nicky says, and with some prodding and poking and a touch of cursing, finally gets Joe where he wants him, back pressed to Nicky’s chest, Nicky’s arm thrown over him. 

Joe lets out a long breath. “They’ve been out there a long time.”

“We are not sending out a search party,” Nicky says, breath hot against the back of Joe’s neck.

“We _are_ the search party,” Joe points out.

“Exactly.”

Joe huffs a laugh and lets the moment stretch. “It was a good day.”

“It was.” Nicky presses his nose just above the collar of Joe’s shirt. 

“Thank you.”

“Prego,” Nicky whispers.

They hear the kitchen door open and close, the rasp of fabric as coats are hung, Andy and Nile’s voices low. Joe almost expects Nile to go right upstairs but she doesn’t, instead ambling into the room and sitting on the floor, back against the couch. Joe can’t see if she’s been crying, looks up at Andy questioningly and gets a smile in return as she curls up in a chair.

“I was thinking about seconds,” Nile says, watching the fire, pulling up her knees.

Joe reaches out a hand and she takes it, clasps it in both of hers without turning her head. Nicky squeezes Joe a little, and Andy leans her head back against the chair, and it’s quiet save for the spit and crackle of wood in the grate and the whistle of the wind in the eaves.

**Author's Note:**

> Cover art by starwatcher!


End file.
